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Bengal takes second day's honours

KOLKATA: Bengal did everything right on the second day of the Elite group `A' Ranji Trophy league match against defending champion Railways and was all set to take charge of the four-day game at the Eden Gardens.

At close on Wednesday, Bengal replied with 169 for the loss of Subhamoy Das and Abhishek Jhunjhunwala's wickets and promised more runs on the third day. By stumps, opener Arindam Das (65, 178b, 262 m, 10x4) and Rohan Gavaskar (11, 38m, 54b, 1x4) were unbeaten.

The only problem for the host was the injury Gavaskar sustained while ducking to a Harvinder Singh bouncer. He was hit between neck and face on the right side. The left-hander recovered to resume batting but was hit again on the leading hand the next ball and yet continued to play till close. By the evening, Gavaskar was unable to turn his neck and might not be able to resume batting on the morrow.

Despite losing Subhamoy Das for 19 runs at the score of 39, Arindam Das and Jhunjhunwala played with a lot of circumspect to make steady progress. Jhunjhunwala and Das put on 105 runs for the second wicket before the former was dismissed for 55 (132b, 151m, 9x4). Bengal would still need 91 runs to go past Railways' first innings total.

Earlier, Railways resumed with the overnight total of 191 for five but collapsed when the second new ball was taken in the 97th over. Tall, gangling Ranadeb Bose found the missing rhythm to grab four more wickets this morning to send the holder crashing to 259 all out. Yere Goud added 29 to his overnight score of 18.